Silent Möbius

(no spoilers but mentions of episode plots)

Silent Mobius is an anime that creeps up on you and sucks you in. I was apprehensive to the series at the beginning, cop dramas really not being up my alley; and the first episode was a poor representation of how this story really shines.
each episode progressively gets better and better, the characters are amazing, fantastic style and animation, tear-jerking moments and scenes that make your heart flutter.

silent mobius delves into and excels at character development and how trauma grips the heart and changes people. lingering feelings of wanting, but feeling a little more than hopeless and ... distant from others; as well as touching on the general tenderness and complexity of emotions. everyone feels well fleshed out and relatable.

the world building and atmosphere of this anime is fantastic, and the background art is breath-takingly beautiful; never failing to set the mood. like i said before, the animation is also great, being a 90s anime (im a bit of a 90s fanatic) it has that soft and serene look to everything from hand drawn cells. very fluid when it needs to be, i found myself geeking out over the motion of certain scenes. i thought the style of the art was a bit plain at first, but it grew on me over time and it suits the anime very very well.

I enjoyed the few somewhat "episodic" episodes of the anime as well. they're a little bit of their own story, but still tie into the main show. IE: the chesire cat episode with lebia, yuki time travel episode, character background episodes.

another way this series really makes a splash is with the sound design. everything is great, from the overall OST to sound effects! i love the opening song and find myself humming it time to time, as well as dancing to that cute little boppy song in yuki's time travel episode. the ending song/s also fits like a glove to the energy that is silent mobius. (scoring a solid 10!)

there's also some very well played comedic moments that had me laughing to myself.

my only complaint is 2 things: i wish grosspoliner got more screen time. it was such an interesting character that seemed to have a large hand in the plot, but was not used to full potential imo.
I also feel the last 6 episodes or so were rushed. so much information and plot was being crammed into the last ~6, it just comes off as glossing/summarizing and really breaks the immersion; thus bringing the final score from a 9 down to a 8. the ending was decent, unfortunately not 100% fulfilling feeling.

overall great anime, deff give it a watch if you enjoy 90s action dramas with loveable characters !!!

Silent Mobius is what I would categorize as a josei cyberpunk police anime that mixes everything with a bit of success and failure.

The characters more or less carried the show for me. What I especially liked were the strong focus on the young women's lives such as their love life and family bonds. The show has individual episode(s) that go very deep into their past and conflict and tries to connect that to the main storyline. This is a nice touch as to the usual action-capture the bad guys police anime and shows the human side of the characters

However some characters like Nami don't ... have a big influence in the show and could have been removed and nothing would change. Characters like Kiddy (my fav) could have been promoted to main character. The voice acting were very strong in the original. I found out Kiddy is voiced by none other than Bulma's VA, a veteran in the industry. Hence no surprise there.

The soundtrack for the series were actually very appropriate for the genre. The (first) ending song "Silently" was sang by Karen Mok. I had to look this up because I didn't think her name would come up in a Japanese anime. The lyrics had very strong ties to the main show and gives a melancholy feeling.The little tune that shows the preview of the next episode was also a reoccuring song that gives a longing and yearning feeling (the OST is called "The Perplexity"). I guess that's why both are placed towards the end as that is what the director wanted to communicate to us.

The art was I believe hand-drawn which I can always appreciate. Most of the show is filmed in the dark as that is often where battles take place. Finally if you have trouble understanding the show, someone wrote great summaries on the wikipedia page for each episode. I had to go read it myself because the storytelling for the main plot wasn't very clear. The final episode also was a bit ambiguous, but I have been told that the manga wasn't finished when the final episode aired.

Many years ago in my teens, I collected magazine about anime, a group of girls dressed in police uniform got my attention (as I love police series and logically also love the anime). The name of this anime, Silent Mobius, never left my mind until they decide to enter the world of these young police girls in last month. Silent Mobius has a history somewhat apocalyptic, and as I had just watched Neo Genesis Evangelion, felt that the two stories were similar in some points, as the Earth is attacked by unknown creatures.
Yes, there in 2023 things are no longer as we know, abominable creatures ... known as Lucifer Hawk (a name that to me makes no sense), terrorizing people, more precisely in the Tokyo city. To combat these creatures a special police department was created, the Department 00, also known as AMP (Attacked Mystification Police Force) which is formed only by women!
The story has everything I really love when it comes to an anime with women! They are in charge, are strong and powerful, and we still have a hint of romance. I really love the romance of Kiddy and Ralph. At first they were like rivals, Kiddy being as tough as Ralph, and both live fighting, until fall in love. No doubt a classic love story!
Many times the story becomes confusing when trying to explain how was the appearance of the Lucifer Hawk, and especially who opened the Nemesis gates. It is insinuated that who does it is the father Katsumi, Gigelf Liqueur, however, in all episodes have something about him, I always had the impression that he tried to prevent the opening of the gates. However, it is not explicit who actually caused all the current decline of the planet. They are sometimes cited secret projects like Gaea Project that are secret even to us, their details are not clear.
An interesting point of Silent Mobius is that taking out the soundtracks of background, most of the songs are in English, fleeing rather than we see in anime in general. Both ending are sung in English, delicate and soothing "Silently" and the romantic "Till The End Of Time". One exception is opening “Forbidden Pensee”, an exciting music with subtle touch of mystery. The background music are also not to throw away bring orchestral atmosphere that perfectly blends the mysterious and dark side of Silent Mobius. The character designs was something that take long to get used to, at first things seemed a little strange, such as Katsumi's face it, depending on your perspective seemed higher, which left her with a look of older than she really was .
At first I thought that 26 episodes would not be enough for addressing every story that was to come, as we got to the 11th episode, and was even introduced the story of some character. Maybe that's why some important explanations end up getting out and everything seems to happen disorderly.